Sweet dreams
by aliena wyvern
Summary: Grey Wardens don't always dream of Darspawn. Prequel to "Somebody that I used to know".


**Set in the same verse as "Somebody that I used to know" and "Don't you worry child". A little introspection in Kallian Tabris' head throughout her journeys.**

* * *

Sweet dreams

 _She opens her eyes to darkness, and there are shackles around her wrists. Cold, biting, burning iron, holding her still. She shakes and it creaks and clanks but does not go away, does not set her free. There's a lump in her throat, and it hurts, as much as her heart that beats fast, too fast._  
 _Somewhere, in the dark, Vaughan Kendells laughs. He steps out of the shadows, his handsome face that hides an ugly soul twisted in a sickening smile, hurling a dagger between his fingers, green eyes sparkling with laughter._  
 _"You died", she says. "I killed you. You're dead."_

 _And she remembers, oh, she remembers his head flying accross the room, blank eyes staring at her in surprise, teeths bared in a snarl. And she remembers hot coppery blood staining her face and the white of her wedding dress. And she remembers the dark stains on his trousers as his headless corpse crumbled on the floor._  
 _She remembers._  
 _And she cannot flee from the memories, and she cannot flee from him._  
 _Trapped._  
 _Lost.  
_ _"I killed you", she whispers. I chopped your head off and you shat yourself when you died."  
_  
 _His smile is crooked, the same that had been plastered on his face as Shianni was lying at his feet, bloodied and hurt. He licks his lips and comes closer, and his hands slide around her waist like those of a lover. Bile rises to her throat, bitter, burning._  
 _She wants to recoil from his touch, and cannot._  
 _"You're not real", she spits. "You can't hurt me anymore. You can't hurt anyone anymore."  
_ _And his dagger is cold and razor sharp, as is his smile, and he kisses her cheek and the side of her neck, and kisses turn to bites, and in the dark, she screams._

She wakes, and Duncan stares at her from the other side of the campfire, his brow furrowed.  
She turns away from him, pulling the thin blanket over her head, the hard, cold floor digging in her flesh through the fabric. She does not want the Shem's pity. She does not want anyone's pity.  
She has survived this.  
Vaughan Kendells is dead, so are his friends, and his guards, and even his dogs, and wherever they are now, they cannot reach her anymore. They cannot hurt her.  
Can they?

Behind her, she hears Duncan move and sit up, even though she cannot see him and does not want to. His steps are heavy. She curls on herself and closes her eyes, faking sleep. Something warm is dropped on her, and it smells like him, firewood and pines and leather, and it reminds her of Home. The Shem gently tucks the second cover around her, just like Mamae used to do when she was still alive and beautiful and happy, and she scrunches her eyes even tighter, keeping the hot tears that are slowly swelling and sticking to her lashes from rolling down her cheeks.  
She does not thank him.  
She never gets the chance to.

* * *

 _The Archdemon is staring at her through fire and smoke. Its yellow, malevolent eyes are burning. She feels naked and exposed and there is nothing she wants more than running and hiding and shielding herself from those eyes._  
 _She cannot._  
 _Her limbs are as heavy as stone, so heavy that she fears her bones might tear her skin to shreds if she ever attempted to move._  
 _Somewhere behind her, people are screaming. She cannot see them. She does not know where they are. She is afraid to look, to turn her back to the dragon crouched in front of her, and die._  
 _Her eyes are hurting. She does not dare to blink._ _If she closes her eyes, she will die. If she looks away, she will die._  
 _She does not want to._  
 _Not here._  
 _Not like that.  
_  
 _The Archdemon throws its head back and shrieks. White hot pain explodes behind her eyes, and the screaming grows louder and louder, until it obliterates everything else._  
 _She turns around, and there is no one behind her. Nothing. Just smoke and fire.  
_ _It is in her head, all in her head, and it hurts, and in front of her, the Archdemon is convulsing, its rotten scales shifting and ringing like a rattlesnake's tail. It is laughing, she realizes, laughing at her and her tears. Because she is weak. And then its jaws open wide and fire burns inside his throat and her hands feel impossobly heavy as she lifts them in a pitiful attempt to shield herself from the flames._  
"Tabris!"  
 _The voices in her head soar as the flames engulf her, and she chokes and sobs.  
_ "Tabris! Kallian, wake up!" _  
Then she burns._

She wakes, and Alistair is looming over her, holding her shoulders, shaking her slightly.  
His eyes are wide with concern. She rather likes Alistair's eyes. They are warm, the color of honey, with tiny specks of gold. They are beautiful, and in the firelight, they glow.  
She feels the gentle grip of his hands lessening, and she freezes. She has never let a Shem touch her like this before, let alone hold her like this. Never. Shems take and take and rip and tear apart and never give anything in return. Shems are not to be trusted. But he is a strange Shem, that one, and he lets go of her shoulders.  
She does not like him, he is not her friend. Not yet, anyway. But he can be that.

"Bad dreams?" he asks, and she nods, and he smiles soothingly.  
He smiles a lot, Alistair.  
He puns a lot, too, but she can easily forgive that.  
He whistles, and on the other side of the campfire, Barkspawn lifts his head and whines pitifully. Her dog rises and trots toward her and licks her hands and everything he can get his tongue on. He slobbers, but that is alright. She buries her face in his soft fur, and Alistair leaves before she can thank him.  
It is alright.  
She does it in the morning.

* * *

 _The Broodmother's shrieks are ringing in her ears as she charges toward the creature, Alistair, Wynne and Oghren hot on her trails, and it seems that the screams of hundreds of tortured creatures are contained in every sound that escapes its throat.  
_  
 _"First day, they come and catch everyone."_

 _And the mountain of purulent flesh moves and her tentacles lashes out like whips. She dodges and stinking dark blood splatters on her face as Oghren's axe slashes through a rotten appendice. It burns, and the taste is acrid and wrong. She can sense the Taint in it, stronger than usual, and even it seems corrupted.  
_  
 _"Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat."  
_  
 _Her daggers slash the beast's belly, and the Broodmother shrieks again, something that sounds like a obscene cry for help, and suddenly, waves of Darkspawn pour from the tunnel, rushing to her help._  
 _Her childrens._  
 _Those are her children, and every time one is cut down, she wonders if it hurts her.  
_  
 _"Third day, the men are all gnawed on again."  
_  
 _Wynne casts a spell, and the familiar scent of burning flesh rises in the air. Worse. Much worse. Like burning a thousand corpses.  
_  
 _"Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate."  
_  
 _She trips on a stone, and her ankle twists. Pain flares along her legs. And it is not a stone she has tripped on, but a skull. And there are others, uncountable others, scattered on the cavern's floor. For the Broodmother's belly is full, and her teeth are sharp, and her black tongue darts to lick them._

 _"Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn."  
_  
 _Her daggers are sharp, too. Soft, yielding flesh, even rotten and corrupted, cannot resist their bite. The vile thing has to die.  
_  
 _"Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams."  
_  
 _Wynne's cry startles her. And there is a tentacle around the mage's frail waste, lifting her in the air, squeezing the air out of her lungs, and the life out of her body._  
 _No._  
 _Not Wynne._  
 _Not like that._  
 _Someone is screaming._  
 _She realizes that it is her.  
_  
 _"Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew."  
_  
 _Oghren's axe rise and fall. And again. And again. The appendice hits the floor. So does Wynne. She does not move. Her hair have fallen over her face, white matted with black, and her yes under it are closed. There are blood at the corner of her mouth.  
_  
 _"Eighth day, we hated as she is violated."  
_  
 _The beast looks like she is laughing, fat flesh trembling as she convulses._ _Disgusting._ _An obscene parody of motherhood._  
 _She readies her daggers and stands her ground.  
Time to end it.  
_  
 _"Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin."  
_  
 _She stares in the monster's small, black eyes, and tries to imagine a face, a life, a woman behind those soulless orbs._  
 _Laryn.  
Her name is, was Laryn, she has to remind herself._  
 _She cannot._  
 _She is long gone._  
 _Alistair leaps forward, and his sword hisses in the air._  
 _Whatever remained of light in the creature's eyes disappears.  
_  
 _"Now she does feast, as she's become the beast."_

 _The Broodmother's head flies in the air and lands heavily, splattering the stone with black, sticky blood. It rolls toward her, and she stops it with her foot._  
 _She turns it._  
 _She should not have._  
 _For it is her own face that stares back at her, with her freckles and her pointed ears and her scars, lifeless eyes wide with fear. Her mouth, her own mouth, with the dimple on the right corner, is still laughing, bared teeth blackened with blood._  
 _She scrambles back and screams, and Hespith's poem keeps swirling in her head, erasing anything else, swallowing her in the darkness.  
_  
 _"Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams."_

She wakes, heart beating like an Avvar war-drum,  
A silent scream dies in throat. The her covers over her feel like an icy shroud on her sweat-drenched body, and she pushes them back.  
She is safe, she has to remind herself. She is safe, and it is fresh, open air that she is breathing, and not the Deep Roads' heavy, corrupted stench. She is safe, and her body is not going to grow tentacles, her belly is not going to swell and explode and fill the world with fiends.  
Not yet, anyway.

Behind her, Alistair mumbles and shifts and tightens his arms around her bare body. He nuzzles her nape in his sleep, and she leans against his muscular form.  
There.  
It is better.  
He is warm. Warm and strong and loving and there. Mostly there.  
And she loves him, too.  
She cannot and will not close her eyes again that night, but it does not matter. As long as she can feel his strong heartbeat against her skin, it is more than enough.

* * *

 _She is happy, and something is wrong._  
 _The green is soft under her feet, the sky is blue above her head, the hair smells of flowers and of pines and moutains, childrens are laughing somewhere in the distance, yet something is terribly wrong._  
 _She does not know what it is._  
 _But there is a house, and there are green fields where childrens are playing, and a forest and a lake, and it is beautiful. She cannot deny it. Something is wrong, but she does not care.  
_  
 _Alistair's arms wrap around her body, pulling her against him, and she feels him smiling against her neck, and this, this is right. She wants it to be right._  
 _"Are you happy, my love?" he whispers, and yes, yes, she is, as his warm hands slide over her body._  
 _She closes her eyes and shiver._  
 _Something is still wrong, and it's nagging at the back of her mind like a rat on a piece of scrap._  
 _"The war is over, now", Alistair says, and oh, she wants to believe him. She wants it so badly._  
 _"We can be together, now", he says, kissing her cheek, "Just the two of us, forever".  
_  
 _And she knows, now, what is wrong, because from the bottom of a nearly forgotten place in her memory that she desperatly wants to shut up, there is another voice rising, that sings an entirely different tune._  
"There isn't an "us"."  
 _She turns in Alistair's arms to face him. His eyes are cold, she registers. The honey of his irises is tarnished.  
"What's wrong, love?" he asks with a pained expression._  
 _"Everything", she wants to scream. "Everything is wrong."  
_  
 _And suddenly, in her hand, there is a dagger, and tears roll down her cheeks as she plunges it deep into his chest._  
 _"How dare you take his form to fool me, demon?" she snarls, and he clings to her shoulders as his knees buckle under him._  
 _"Kallian", he chokes, and he looks so betrayed and hurt, that for a moment, she fears that she is wrong, and that everything was right._  
"There isn't a "us"."  
 _No. She must be right. She has to.  
_  
 _And suddenly there is no more lake, no more house, no more moutains and no more childrens, nothing but ashes and chaos and mists. The Alistair that is not really Alistair shifts, honey turns to deep purple, and it is a Desire Demon that stands in his place, beautiful, wounded and bleeding._  
 _"Fool", she hisses, coughing blood. "You could have had it all."_  
 _And she knows. She knows, and she weeps as the Demon vanishes._  
"There isn't an "us"."

She wakes, and she reaches for Alistair in the bed.  
Her seeking hands meet nothing but emptiness.  
He is not there.  
He is not there, and she is cold and alone and scared, and it's already been sometimes, but she cannot bring herself to adjust.  
 _"There isn't an us. There is me, then there is the woman who let Duncan's murderer live."_  
Her cheeks are wet.

She does not want to know if what the Fade has shown her is, was her future. She does not want to know, and she does not want to dream anymore. It is as painful as the waking world. She cannot escape the pain, now. It is everywhere.  
 _Heartache._  
What a strange word.  
Yet so accurate.

She gathers the covers around and above her, and wraps her hands around her knees.  
There.  
She cannot see the world. She cannot hear it. But the pain does not lessen.  
She envies Loghain and Morrigan, now. The Ritual is perhaps the worst and weirdest idea of all time, but at least, they are not alone. She does no even know why she agreed. Does she wants to survive?  
She is not sure, and it terrifies her.

Somebody knocks on the door. She answers like an automat.  
"My Lady, are you alright?"  
Oh.  
Right.  
Bann Teagan.  
He must have heard her. Crying or doing whatever stupid thing she does in her sleep.  
"I..."  
There is a lump in her throat. She wants to scream in anguish.

"My Lady?"  
He looks warm, his eyes full of concern. And something else. She realizes that she is wearing nothing but an oversized man's shirt.  
"Alistair", she thinks. "I cannot..."  
And then, it hits her. As a matter of fact, she can.  
Alistair is long gone.  
Teagan looks warm and solid and there. Mostly there.  
His smile is gentle, and tomorrow, she might be dead.

"I don't want to be alone tonight", she says.  
"My Lady, I don't think..." he protests, and she knows that he thinks of Alistair, too.  
Her voice breaks.  
"Please."  
He nods.  
It's alright, she thinks as she locks the door, his arms already around her waist and his lips on her neck.  
It is alright.  
It is not.  
It does not matter anymore.

* * *

 _She walks on a battlefield that is filled with corpses.  
Thousands and thousands of bloodied, mangled, burned, mutilated, desecated corpses under the sun. The foul stench of death is unbearable. __And all those lifeless, soulless blank eyes are staring right at her, accusing._  
 _She does no know why._  
 _So she walks, trying to find an end, a way out, something else. She cannot avoid looking. There is a corpse in every single place her aching eyes land on._  
 _She walks.  
_  
 _There are faces she knows in this open grave, but there is nothing she can do for the dead._  
 _No one can._  
 _The first face she sees is Nelaros. Her long-dead betrothed, lying face down in the dirt._  
 _She passes by._  
 _Daveth, covered in tainted blood, and Jory, empty eyes wide with terror. Duncan, mangled beyond recognition, and king Cailan, stripped bare, offered to the crows._  
 _She passes by. Her throat is dry like parchment. Her head is spinning.  
_  
 _Then Wynne, her slit throat open like a gaping mouth, shielding Leliana's broken body with her own. Morrigan, laying near her broken staff. Zevran's severed head, the rest of him nowhere in sight. Her dog, who seems asleep even though he is not._  
 _She sobs._  
 _This is wrong._  
 _This is wrong._  
 _They are not dead._  
 _They cannot be._  
 _But she keeps on walking.  
_  
 _Loghain is sprawled on the ground nearby. Alone. Blood seeps by every single crack in his armor. There is_ _Riordan, too, his limbs twisted into impossible angles._ _And others. Others that she knows and loves and that she can or cannot remember dying, Shianni and Soris and Mamae and Papae and Anora and Oghren and Anders and Varel and Connor and Iona and Neria and Teagan and Nathaniel and Velanna and Bodhan and more and please, please, stop, it is too much._  
 _Dead._  
 _All dead._  
 _All dead, and there is a bloody sword in her hand, and she does not know what has happened._

 _Nausea hits her like a punch in the guts. Her knees buckle under her weight, and she retches on the ground, tainted blood, red and black._  
 _"See", somebody says behind her, and she knows who it is, and does not, no, she does not want to look. "This is your doing."_  
 _"Alistair", she whispers, begs. "Please."_  
 _She turns, and there he is, smiling. But it is not his smile. It is twisted, cruel._  
 _"We are all dead, my love", he says. "And you did this to us."_  
 _"No", she rasps, and takes a step back._  
 _"Even I", he keeps on smiling, "you had to rip my heart out and tear it to shreds."_  
 _And there is a fist-sized hole in his armor, stained with dried blood, and when she looks at her hands, they are red._

 _She flees._  
 _She flees, and she runs, and her legs are too heavy, and she trips and falls and the deads fall over her, swallowing her, burying her alive as she struggles and chokes on her own screams._  
 _Darkness is a blessing, after that._

She wakes.  
She wakes, and for the first time in months, she is content to wake. Sunlight is barely showing above the keep's towers.  
She stretches and reaches for Nathaniel beside her. He is not there. But the place where he has been is still warm.  
She sighs.  
Maybe, one day, she will manage to convince him to stay in the morning. He never does.  
Perhaps he is ashamed. Perhaps he is afraid of what might be said. She is not. His name may be Howe, but she cannot for the love of the Maker see his father's hate-filled face when she looks at him. Not anymore.

He is not Alistair, but she does not need him to be. She needs him to be there. That is enough. And one day, he will be there when she wakes, and she will be fine. They both will be, for he is as broken as she is, and he, too, dreams.  
She has not asked him about it yet.

Kallian Tabris wakes, but it is the Warden-Commander of Ferelden that fastens her armor and leaves her quarters to check on her men.  
She quite enjoys it. Hiding behind a title to the point that she disappears into it.  
The Warden-Commander does not dream, after all.

* * *

 **There will be more to come in that particular verse. What do you want to see?**


End file.
